General Information:
Students interested in becoming a patent attorney may want to take the USPTO Qualification Examination (Patent Bar) before completing law school. Taking and passing the exam enables one to register as a “patent agent” and prosecute patents with the U.S. Patent & Trademark Office (USPTO). Prosecuting patents simply means being able to write and submit patent applications through the USPTO, which only registered patent agents, patent attorneys, or inventors who submit their own patent applications are allowed to do.
The Patent Bar does not require the applicant to have graduated law school or to be in the field of law at all. The basic requirement is that the applicant has a science or engineering degree, although there are options that will qualify an applicant who has a certain number of science/engineering credits. See the
General Requirements Bulletin (PDF, p.4-8) for all of the specific qualification information. Please note that the listed option to qualify by way of practical scientific or engineering experience is virtually never accepted.
Applicants register through the
Office of Enrollment and Discipline and pay a $40 non-refundable application fee and $200 registration fee. A $150 fee must be paid to Thompson Prometric to administer the exam once an applicant has been accepted. Total costs to take the patent bar exam: $390. Once an exam taker passes the exam, registering as a patent agent or attorney costs an additional $300.
Registration typically takes three weeks for the USPTO to accept or reject an application. Upon acceptance, an exam taker has a 90-day window in which to take the exam. If you fail the exam, you are eligible to re-register (along with fees) after 30 days and take the exam again as many times as necessary.
In Spokane, computerized tests are administered at the Sylvan Learning Center in North Spokane, with multiple test dates available each month. The exam lasts six hours and is separated into two 3-hour sessions with a 1-hour break in-between. Written exams are available only once a year, usually in Washington D.C., and cost $250 more than computerized exams.
What the Exam Encompasses:
The exam consists of 100 multiple-choice questions, 90 of which are graded. The 10 non-graded questions are beta questions and are interspersed throughout the test. The 90 graded questions all have been used in previous exams. An exam-taker must correctly answer 70% (sixty three) of the ninety scored questions in order to pass. The typical pass rate each year hovers around a mere 50%. However, this may have more to do with a lack of preparation than with the difficulty of the exam.
The exam itself is not based so much on knowing law as it is on knowing the procedure used to prosecute a patent. This procedure is detailed in the
Manual of Patent Examining Procedure (MPEP). A searchable version of the MPEP is available for the computerized exams, which is helpful considering the MPEP is over 3,000 pages.
Topics on the exam range from knowing the different parts of a patent (i.e. drawings, specification, and claims), how to properly form different types of claims (e.g. Jepson claim, multiple dependent claims, etc.), claim terminology, patentability, all of the different types of non-provisional applications, prior art, objections/amendments/rejections/appeals, and many other topics. In addition, parts of 35 USC and 37 CFR code sections must be understood and much of it memorized. With such a vast amount of material to cover, it is highly recommended that an exam taker use study aids in order to prepare.
Studying for the Exam:
Since all of the scored questions have been used in past examinations, it is essential that an exam taker go through as many past exams as possible. The USPTO has access to a few past exams and answers
on their website, but other resources such as
Lawprofessor.org contains archives to many more past exams.
Of course, just going through past exams is not enough to understand all of the material of the MPEP. It is almost certainly necessary to use a study guide to prepare for the exam. Many different review courses exist, but the most highly recommended are ones sold by PRG and PLI (which also happen to be some of the most expensive). Listed below is a list of a few of the different study aids. Please contact these companies if you have specific questions about what they are offering.
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Patent Resources Group (PRG): Professor Kayton’s review course consists of 46 hours of instructional video along with lecture charts to follow along with. The materials also include Patent Practice volumes that are helpful for practicing before the USPTO, two-thousand exam questions and answers, software to simulate an exam, printed and electronic forms of the MPEP, and Kayton’s treatise on how to pass the patent bar. In-person classes are also available in select cities. Price: $2,690.
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Practicing Law Institute (PLI): PLI also offers home study or live courses in select cities. The home study course includes video and audio lectures, an exam simulator, the MPEP, and multiple volumes of study materials. Contact PLI for more details. Price for students: $1,795.
*Other patent review courses:
Patbar.com Review Course: Price: $795.
BAR/BRI Patent Review Course: Price for students: $1,895.
Pass the Patent Bar with Jim Longacre: Price: $1,295.
Given the extraordinary cost of some of these courses, an exam taker may want to consider buying discounted used materials through a medium such as eBay.
Typically, the time required to devote to studying for the exam is around 150 hours, or four weeks. Others recommend 15-20 hours per week of studying over three months to fully prepare. However, the real gauge of whether you are ready to take the exam depends on if you can take two practice exams in an exam setting and get 80% correct or better. Then you are ready to register and take the real exam.
All of the information presented above is used only to help a student form a basis of what is required to take the patent bar exam. More information is available from online sources or by asking someone who has taken the patent bar (and passed).
Labels: general, patents
